And Zen What

We are back from the beach.

It was warm enough this time for everybody (even Mom, MOM!) to actually go into the water. Of course, this meant that the campground was much more crowded than we are used to, but it was a wonderfully mellow, friendly, quiet kind of crowded.

Oceans make people happy (when, that is, they are not in natural disaster mode).

Everybody tried boogie-boarding, but with only 2 boards, there was a lot of body-surfing, running in and out, and just general flailing going on as well.

Five was having a pretty frustrating time of it. At the ripe old age of 7 he still has his layer of baby fat keeping him warm. It also keeps him buoyant, and in a way that makes it pretty much impossible to body surf. He'd catch the wave, sure enough. And his timing was mostly pretty good. But try as he might, he always ended up just kind of being tumbled head over heels a few times and then sort of bumping along on his bottom, legs straight out in front of him, the last few feet. It was getting him down a bit, though he was trying to stay positive.

Parental "Good try, Five" type gestures were not helping.

Four watched this for a while. He has some experience of learning-frustration himself, as he tends to take his own time to figure out how to do things, and it's usually a longer time than he is supposed to take, according, that is, to official benchmarks. (It wouldn't surprise me much to learn that there are body-surfing developmental criteria; they've got them for everything else.) So he knew just how Five was feeling, and he really wanted to help. But how?

Suddenly the lightbulb moment--I could see it happen.

Four yelled, "Hey FIVE!!! You are BUTT-SKATIN'--KEWLLLLLL!!!!!!"

That moment of naming created a new sport and a happy Five.

Sibs are a very good idea.